


All Wrapped Up

by somanyopentabs



Category: Avengers (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Awkwardness, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Sharing Clothes, Sharing a Room, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-05 04:23:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somanyopentabs/pseuds/somanyopentabs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It started with the blue jacket.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Wrapped Up

**Author's Note:**

> I'm labeling this platonic, but it could also be read as romantic friendship, if you want? As for me, I'm on the fence about what I want it to be. So is Bruce. Right now he just wants Jessica to be his bff with lots of hugs I guess.

Bruce rarely had dreams. Well, he had plenty of nightmares. But innocuous dreams, being caught unprepared and without his notes in the middle of a lecture sort of dreams—those didn’t happen so often.

Which is why he was startled to wake up one morning and recall dreaming about Jessica Drew, of all people.

No, he shouldn’t be so surprised, he told himself shortly. He didn’t fully remember the dream, but he remembered Jessica’s friendly face. 

The operative word was ‘friend.’

Reality being what it was these past few years, there were few pleasant happenings to draw upon for his subconscious mind to mirror and expand.

But now, well...if he had been ‘dour’ before (which he seriously believed was hyperbole on Tony’s part), he was certainly less so, now. And he knew just who to thank for that.

In his recollection, it mostly started with the blue jacket, and just went on from there.

Jessica wrapped him up in sweaters, fleece jackets, windbreakers, hoodies, heavy winter coats, cloaks and rain slickers. It didn’t hurt that they were nearly the same size.

She was a little taller, a little sturdier than he was—in human form, at least. But she didn’t have to turn into someone else entirely in order to lift a car or kick a door off its hinges.

Strangely enough, there was no bitterness on his part. No tiny bit of him that held a grudge over her apparent luck in certain aspects of her life. His admiration of her only grew.

Was that a bad thing? His treacherous brain told him yes—run from happiness! Don’t feel the least amount of contentment! And most of all, don’t get too attached!

His brain was also fond of overzealous punctuation marks, apparently.

Surprisingly enough, Bruce wasn’t the only one who noticed the connection between himself and Spider-Woman.

“You work well together,” Maria Hill was saying, with Fury nodding, arms crossed, beside her.

Bruce looked from Hill to Fury to Jessica, trying not to gape. This was not what he expected when he’d been called into SHIELD. A mission? For the two of them? Really?

“Pack your bags, agents.”

Bruce gaped at everyone for a moment. “I’m not an agent.”

“Neither am I. Nevertheless, I accept.” Jessica spoke with confidence, and gave Bruce a wink.

Well, who was he to argue?

The mission was simple, and it did make sense for the both of them to go together. They were supposed to travel to an area with high levels of radiation and check for evidence of tampering with the site.

“Is this your sweater, or mine?”

Bruce looked over his glasses at the item in question. Jessica was holding the garment thoughtfully, but honestly Bruce couldn’t recall whose it was. He went through clothing so quickly that it hardly mattered.

Sharing a hotel room just outside the radiated site was something that Bruce had protested, if only for a moment. Why would Jessica want to share a room with him, especially if they had near unlimited SHIELD resources?

Jessica had just laughed, and said it made more sense for them to share. She had been quite convincing at the time, but now that he thought about it, Bruce couldn’t recall what exactly had been her point.

At least there were two beds. 

“Bruce?”

“Um, I’m not sure,” he finally answered, shaking himself out of his own little world.

“Huh.” Jessica put the sweater down and picked up their copy of the mission parameters. “Do you want to go over anything again?”

Bruce shook his head. “No, it’s fine. It’s fairly straight-forward.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Wanna see what’s on TV?”

“Sure.”

Jessica grabbed the remote and started flipping through channels. “Preferences?”

“Not really.”

Jessica kept changing channels, and decided to settle next to Bruce, who was sitting on one of the twin beds.

Suddenly, Bruce had no idea what to do with his hands.

“What do you want to get for dinner?” Jessica asked, switching from a nature documentary to Cartoon Network.

“I’m not picky.”

“Wow, Bruce. Be less opinionated, why don’t you.”

“Sorry. I’m just—sorry.”

“Hey, come on, I’m kidding.” Jessica put her arm around his shoulders, and Bruce tried his best not to melt into her touch, he really did.

He really, really failed.

“Can we talk?” Bruce blurted out before he lost his nerve.

“About the mission?”

“No. Not about the mission. I wanted to say thanks.”

“Sure. For what?”

Bruce wasn’t sure how to encompass everything that she’d done for him lately in a few words, there was so much he didn’t know how to articulate.  
“...well, the ice cream was a really nice gesture.” If Bruce could, he would smack himself. Out of everything, he chose to mention the ice cream? Okay, it was delicious, but it was hardly the most important thing.

“Ha. You’re welcome. You want to order a pizza?” Jessica asked, ruffling his hair.

Bruce smiled, and let his guard down as much as he ever could. “Pizza’s good.”


End file.
